| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Sunday, April 12, 2020 |
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| | Guggenheim, facing $10 million shortfall, turns to furloughs and pay cuts | |
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The Guggenheim Museum in New York, May 12, 2009. The director of the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation told employees on Friday that the institution would implement furloughs and pay reductions in an effort to contend with the deep and sudden impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Tony Cenicola/The New York Times.
by Colin Moynihan
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation told employees Friday that the institution would implement furloughs and pay reductions in an effort to contend with the deep and sudden impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The near- and long-term financial impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the Museums fiscal well-being is profound, the director, Richard Armstrong, wrote in an email to workers. This decision did not come easily. Armstrong said in a separate statement that the Guggenheim projected a $10 million revenue shortfall and added that 92 staff members from across the museum would be furloughed. Those staff members, which union officials said include about a dozen people who work in a clandestine storage facility, will be paid through April 19 and receive health benefits covered by the ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A dog wonders between the columns behind the closed entrance of an archaeological site of Hadrian's Library, in central Athens, 9 April 2020, as the country remains under lock down to stop the spread of Covid-19 disease caused by the novel corona virus. Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP
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 | | Russians battle confinement blues with DIY artwork challenge | | Leading artist Michael Craig-Martin creates colour your own "thank you" for NHS staff | | Museum and film center adopt measures to extend staff employment and maintain health benefits | 
One couple posted three images made in their Saint Petersburg flat, including Rembrandt's "The Return of the Prodigal Son".
MOSCOW (AFP).- From laying out shrimp to resemble Henri Matisse's "Dance" to cross-dressing and posing for Leonardo Da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine", Russians have embraced a challenge to re-create famous artworks while under lockdown. As boredom and restlessness set in under coronavirus quarantine, internet users are posting DIY versions of museum masterpieces in a Facebook group that is approaching 400,000 members. "The proliferation of our project has been even more exponential than that of the virus," jokes Yekaterina Brudnaya-Chelyadinova, who founded the Izoizolyatsia (Artistic Isolation) group to fight lockdown blues. The group follows similar artwork challenges started in March by Getty Museum and some dedicated Instagram accounts, but Russians seem to have heeded the call with particular gusto. Brudnaya- ... More | | 
The poster can be downloaded from the BBC website: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/NHS%20poster%20MCM%202b.pdf
LONDON.- One of Britain's leading artists, Sir Michael Craig-Martin, has designed a poster for adults and children to colour in and display as a show of support for the work of the National Health Service (NHS). The poster can be downloaded from the BBC website. Sir Michael said, "Now more than ever is the time to show our appreciation for the courageous work of our NHS staff across the UK. We might be in lockdown but, by colouring in this design individually and sharing it either in windows or digitally, you can show your personal support for the selfless work they're doing to save the lives of our friends, family and loved ones." Across the UK, people have been showing their support for frontline NHS staff and other key workers as they grapple with the extreme circumstances of a deadly virus and a country in lockdown. This has taken many forms, from communal clapping to painted ... More | | 
During the closure, Director Brian Ferriso will take a pay cut along with some members of the Museums senior leadership team.
PORTLAND, ORE.- In order to preserve staff wages and benefits for as long as possible, as well as protect the long-term sustainability of the institution, the Portland Art Museum and Northwest Film Center will place approximately 80 percent of staff (60 percent of full-time equivalents) on unpaid leave status, effective April 16. The move follows the closure of the Museum and Film Center to the public on March 14 in accordance with the community health order issued by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to combat the spread of COVID-19. I feel a great sense of responsibility to make sure our staff and institution are cared for as best we are able, said Portland Art Museum Director Brian Ferriso. Since the closure, the Museum and Film Center have incurred $1 million per month in payroll and other expenses, without offsetting revenue from admissions, rental event business, ... More |
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| | His heroes have always been cowboys | | Floris Neusüss, an unrelenting pioneer of experimental photography, dies | | Almost 2 million people visit the Prado during the confinement | 
A visually stunning compilation of Richard Princes 40-year-long project of examining the cowboy as an American symbol.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Photography and the mythos of the American cowboy have been lassoed together almost from birth. Even when they werent working hand in hand, they were often in close company. The most famous showdown in the Old West, the gunfight at the OK Corral, took place not at the corral but six doors down in front of the photography studio of Camillus Fly. He was too busy ducking to take a picture but ran out with a Henry rifle as the shots died away and disarmed Billy Clanton, one of the outlaws in a gang called yes the Cowboys. Richard Prince: Cowboy, a lavish, offbeat new book, just published by Prestel, uses photography to take a long look at the pervasive, at times pernicious, influence of the cowboy on movies, television, books, advertising and politics. The book is nominally devoted to the work of Prince, who rose to fame in the 1980s through his coy appropriation of the majestic ... More | | 
Floris Neusüss, Portrait of Joyce Neimanas, 1997. Gelatin silver photogram on auto-reversal paper, 90.6 x 41.7 inches (230 x 106 cm), each. Unique.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The von Lintel Gallery announced the passing of Floris Neusüss, an unrelenting pioneer of experimental photography, on April 1, in Kassel, Germany. The von Lintel gallery has been representing Floris Neusüss since 2013, who has devoted his entire career to the rigorous study, practice and teaching of the photogram technique. He is recognized as part of the photogram vanguard alongside predecessors Man Ray and Lázló Maholy-Nagy. The artists iconic nudograms from the 1960s and 70s were made by exposing the human figure directly onto photographic paper. The proximity of the model to the paper influenced the sharpness of the contours and the amount of light dispensed affected the intensity of the tones. Movementeither accidental or intentionaldissolved and fractured the silhouettes into transcendent forms removed from any sense of time or place. Despite the subjects absence, a palpable intimacyor, presenceis felt. ... More | | 
Employees of the Prado Museum invite users to tour the greatness of its collection through the website in 9 different languages. © Museo Nacional del Prado.
MADRID.- The initiative #Pradowithyou, a social media and website activities programme, that enables the Prado to maintain contact with its public, has reached 1969852 users since March 12, the day that the Prado closed to the public, due to the sanitary crisis caused by COVID 19. Social media interactions have increased 190% compared with past months. The most popular videos were the one posted March 13 related with Rubens, Verones and Pousdin with comments by Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish Painting. And also the video related with the Garden of Earthly Delights with comments by the botanical researcher Eduardo Barba. The first video reached 481000 and the second 413000 reproductions in Facebook and Instagram. The most visited content of the Museum's website during confinement are the search browser of the collection and the educational resources for students #Pradoeducation. The Museo del Prado has 1019311, 678318 and ... More |
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| | Culture that's worth staying at home for this Easter | | Reeves collection of Indian artwork offered in Heritage Ethnographic Art Auction | | How museums can move forward in the age of social distancing | 
Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), The Slippers of Cinderella 1894. Ink and watercolour on paper. Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press.
LONDON.- This Easter weekend, millions of people across the UK will be able to access new arts and culture offerings from their homes as museums and theatres launch special events for the Bank Holiday weekend. In recent weeks, cultural organisations who have had to close their doors to visitors have continued to engage and entertain audiences online. The series of digital initiatives, ranging from live premieres to literature festivals is helping to make sure that no one is missing out on the best of British creativity by having to stay in. Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, said: No matter where you are in the UK, our outstanding cultural institutions can keep you entertained throughout the whole Easter weekend. Thanks to these digital events, you can watch a play, learn a craft or see an exhibition with a world class ... More | | 
A Large and Important Gran Coclé Gold Pendant (estimate: $20,000-30,000).
DALLAS, TX.- A collection carefully curated over more than half a century will make up nearly half of the lots in Heritage Auctions Ethnographic Art Auction May 29 in Dallas, Texas. Keith and Sara Reeves have spent more than 50 years researching, discussing and hunting for artwork, with the goals of not only expanding but also raising the quality of their Florida-based collection. Many of those items now will be available to the public through Heritages Ethnographic Art: American Indian, Pre-Columbian and Tribal Auction Featuring the I.S.K. Reeves V and Sara W. Reeves Collection. Keith Reeves acknowledged that he and Sara expect to find it tough to part with many of the items in a collection they have spent much of their lives building. "Keith Reeves has a file and a collection tag for each item, Heritage Auctions Senior Ethnographic Art Specialist Delia Sullivan said. "The material being offered at auction will ... More | | 
A security man guards the main entrance of the Louvre Museum in Paris on April 2, 2020 on the seventeenth day of a strict lockdown in France to stop the spread of COVID-19 (novel coronavirus). THOMAS COEX / AFP.
by Grace McCormick
NEW YORK, NY.- So, the doors are shut. Now what? Arts and cultural centers have heavily relied on in-person visitors in the past. Now, they have to find new ways to continue their missions and support their communities digitally. Every institution will find itself with its own unique dilemmas, but here are some ways consultants and museum professionals suggest art and cultural institutions find their way through this pandemic: Museum & nonprofit digital strategy consultant Koven Smith said for institutions that dont have the digital expertise or resources to help them pivot to online-only engagement, now is the time to work internally. What you have now is actually a moment to take a step back and build a stronger foundation for later. Your focus ... More |
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| | Bruce Baillie, catalytic avant-garde filmmaker, dies at 88 | | Robert Crumb's 'Modern Dance Workshop' original art could bring $100K+ at Heritage Comics & Comic Art Auction | | Father of modern Iraqi architecture dies of COVID-19 | 
Bruce Baillie, Castro Street, 1966.
by J. Hoberman
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Bruce Baillie, who personified the Bay Area experimental cinema of the 1960s as an independent filmmaker and consummate 16-millimeter craftsman whose most extraordinary movie is a single panning shot, died Friday at his home on Camano Island, Washington. He was 88. His wife, Lorie Baillie, confirmed the death. A catalytic figure in the development of West Coast avant-garde film, Baillie became known in the mid-1960s for his lyrical landscape films one of which, Castro Street (1966), was selected for the National Film Registry in 1992 as well as for his anguished considerations of the landscapes despoliation in films like Mass (1964) and Quixote (1965). Six of his movies, including those three, are regularly screened by Anthology Film Archives in New York as part of the institutions essential cinema. Filmmakers as varied as George Lucas and Thai director ... More | | 
Robert Crumb CoEvolution Quarterly #14 Complete 4-Page Story "R. Crumb's Modern Dance Workshop" Original Art (Point, 1977). Estimate: $100,000+.
DALLAS, TX.- The rare original art for a four-page story by Robert Crumb, one of the most prominent artists of the Underground Comix movement of the 1960s, could bring $120,000 or more in Heritage Auctions Comics & Comics Auction April 30-May 3 in Dallas, Texas. Robert Crumb CoEvolution Quarterly #14 Complete 4-Page Story "R. Crumb's Modern Dance Workshop" Original Art (Point, 1977) (estimate: $100,000+) is a four-page story that many of the artists fans will recognize from when it was reprinted in Best Buy Comics #nn from Apex Novelties in 1979, during a peak period during the artists long career. In the story, Crumb himself always the artists best known character directs a womens modern dance troupe, in his inimitable fashion. Crumb pioneered such fantastical autobiographical comics and the ink-on-Bristol board pages are done in ink with incredible detail; the first page is signed and dated lower left. "Ro ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on April 24, 2009, Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji takes a night walk by the sea near his house in the coastal Lebanese town of Halat. Joseph EID / AFP.
BAGHDAD (AFP).- Rifat Chadirji, known as the father of modern Iraqi architecture, died late Friday in the United Kingdom after contracting the novel coronavirus, friends and Iraqi officials have said. The 93-year-old architect and photographer is credited with designing some of Iraq's most well-known structures, including the iconic "Freedom Monument" in the now protest hub of Baghdad's Tahrir Square its name. "He was a giant of 20th century Iraq," said Caecilia Pieri, a scholar focusing on Baghdad's modern architecture who knew Chadirji well. Top Iraqi officials including President Barham Saleh and caretaker premier Adel Abdel Mahdi mourned him on Saturday. "With the death of Rifat Chadirji, architecture in Iraq and the world has lost its modern lung," Saleh wrote. Born in Baghdad in 1926, Chadirji studied in London and returned to Iraq in the 1950s ... More |
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Titian's 'Diana's | Titian: Love, Desire, Death | National Gallery
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 Andy González, prolific Latin jazz bassist, is dead at 69NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Andy González, one of the great bassists in Latin jazz, who in a career that stretched more than four decades played with numerous influential groups notably the Fort Apache Band, which he formed with his brother Jerry died on Thursday in the Bronx. He was 69. His sister, Eileen González-Altomari, said the causes were pneumonia and complications of diabetes. González was a versatile player, as well as an arranger, composer, music historian and producer of other musicians records. He embraced African, Cuban and Puerto Rican styles, various strains of jazz and other influences, often merging them into something fresh. The Boston Globe once called him a modernist preoccupied with tradition. He grew up in a musical household in the Bronx; he and Jerry, a trumpeter and percussionist who was ... More Art, fine wine and collectables under the online hammer with Strauss & CoCAPE TOWN.- When Roland Peens of Wine Cellar fine wine merchants met Bina Genovese and the Strauss & Co team in 2019, a dream of combined art, collectables and fine wine auctions started taking shape. A year later, in a time of disruption, Strauss & Co continues to propose fine art and wines across different growers and sites on auction online, with secure delivery post Lockdown. Bidding on Straussart.co.za runs from the 6th until the 14th of April with 85 lots from 31 producers, including a fine mix of mature wines and highly sought-after collectables. Bina and Roland share their insights into getting your art and vinous fix from the comfort of your home, in unusual times. Q: Roland, this year Strauss & Co will be offering a series of fine wine, art and collectables online auctions based on categorised themes. Please tell us a bit about the 'Rhône online ... More New online performance by Faustin Linyekula released on Tate's channelsLONDON.- Tate has released an exclusive online-only performance by Faustin Linyekula, one of many ways people can still access art through Tates digital channels. The Congolese choreographer and dance artist was due to perform in the Tanks at Tate Modern from 20 to 29 March 2020. His work was among those programmed for this years BMW Tate Live Exhibition: Our Bodies, Our Archives, alongside other performances by Okwui Okpokwasili and Tanya Lukin Linklater. These were cancelled when Tates four sites closed due to the coronavirus, but Linyekula and those of his collaborators who could make it to London in the circumstances worked with Tate to stage a one-off, site-specific work, performed to camera in the empty Tanks. Now available to watch on the exhibition web page for free, My Body, My Archive is a performance ... More H&H help their clients sell over £3.3 million in just 3 weeks despite the coronavirus lockdownLONDON.- The H&H Motorcycle Sale which took place on April 7th behind closed doors as a Live Auction Online dispatched 129 lots for a total of £900,000 a 67% sell rate. No fewer than five of the top seven bikes sold were Vincents, stamping new collectable authority onto the rising value of this British marque. Mark Bryan, Head of Motorcycle sales for H&H says: Given the context a global pandemic this is a remarkable result which speaks so clearly of the passion collectors have for motorcycles and the trust they have in H&H. People were buying bikes they had not seen and without knowing precisely when they could take delivery Top items in the sale were: Lot 120, 1955 Vincent Black Shadow Series C sold for £47,150 Lot 115, 1954 Vincent Rapide Series C for £36,800 Lot 119, 1947 Vincent Rapide Series B for £35,075 Lot 161, 1938 ... More #5WomenArtists campaign celebrates women using art to make changeWASHINGTON, DC.- More than 675 national and international cultural institutions from six continents and 36 countries participated in the fifth year of the National Museum of Women in the Arts award-winning #5WomenArtists social media campaign. NMWAs year-round goal is to address gender imbalance in the art world, but every MarchWomens History Monththe museum has the opportunity to capture the attention of a wider audience to help celebrate women artists. The campaign challenges cultural organizations and individual social media users to answer the question Can you name five women artists? It aims to help increase awareness of gender inequality in the art world. Using the hashtag #5WomenArtists, NMWA launched the campaign March 1 on its website and blog as well as on the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and ... More Louis Johnson, 90, genre-crossing dancer and choreographer, diesNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Louis Johnson, an acclaimed choreographer, dancer and director whose career spanned Broadway, ballet and modern dance, died on March 31 in Manhattan. He was 90. The cause was pneumonia and renal failure, said Glory Van Scott, a dancer, actress and director and his friend and health care proxy. He recently tested positive for the coronavirus, she said. As a dancer and choreographer, Johnson was known for his extensive range. He performed in Broadway shows like House of Flowers and Hallelujah Baby! and in the screen and stage versions of Bob Fosses Damn Yankees. An African-American who was influenced by black mentors, he created works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dance Theater of Harlem. He was the choreographer of the 1978 film adaptation of The ... More Timken introduces new online art classes at Balboa Naval Hospital and Juvenile HallSAN DIEGO, CA.- The education team from the Timken Museum of Art is determined to not let COVID-19 slow down their artistic and instructional outreach programs. With the museum temporarily closed due to the coronavirus, Kristina Rosenberg, the Timkens director of education, and Elizabeth Washburn, the museums teaching artist, have designed online art classes for those they normally serve year-round and in-person at the Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), commonly known as the Balboa Naval Hospital, and the Kearny Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility, known informally as Juvenile Hall. While the Timken being temporarily closed has put a pause on serving the public in our customary welcoming, personal and face-to-face manner to which our members, donors and visitors have grown accustomed, we knew we had to mobilize and figure ... More C24 Gallery publishes catalogue of Christian Vincent's newest collection of oil paintingsNEW YORK, NY.- C24 Gallery announced the publication of their new catalogue, Christian Vincent: Culture Keeper, following the success of Vincents recent solo exhibition at C24, Culture Keepers. The catalogue shares Vincent's newest collection of oil paintings along with an overview of other related work, as a celebration of his unique style that continues to deepen, even as it evolves. It also features an insightful essay by Audra Lambert, New York City based independent curator, art critic and Founder/Curator of Antecedent Projects. Here is an excerpt from Lambert's essay, along with some selected catalogue images:"Never brash or confrontational, Vincents work nevertheless addresses the lingering weight of memory, with glancing impressions of the past infusing the fleeting brushstrokes and the pastel swaths ... More A new album reflects a composer's stubborn versatilityNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- After a difficult period of exile in the United States that lasted for much of the 1940s, Bertolt Brecht was ready to work with kindred spirits again. And in composer Paul Dessau, he recognized a fellow burr under the saddle. Describing a 1949 production of his play Mother Courage and Her Children in East Berlin, Brecht wrote that Dessaus settings of its songs were not meant to be particularly easy, adding that the music left something to be supplied by the audience; in the act of listening they had to link the voices with the melody. This amounted to high praise from a playwright known for his theory of the alienation effect in the theater. And as Brechts troupe, the Berliner Ensemble, blossomed in the years that followed, he drew Dessau into more projects. Today, though, Dessau (1894-1979) is relatively ... More A Rube Goldberg hand-washing contraption? The race is onNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- As if we werent already spending enough time washing our hands to keep the coronavirus at bay, the process could get a lot more complicated and comic if Jennifer George has her way. In the spirit of her grandfather Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist renowned for designing absurdly elaborate contraptions to accomplish the simplest tasks (attracting a waiters attention, swatting a fly), George has invited people isolated in their homes to build devices that drop a bar of soap into someones hand using a sequence of 10 to 20 steps. As the legacy director of Rube Goldberg Inc., George, 60, has been using her grandfathers cartoons of chain-reaction inventions, which were syndicated for decades in publications nationwide, as the springboard for books, exhibitions and school contests. But ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, French painter Robert Delaunay was born April 12, 1885. Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 - 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee. His key influence related to bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone. In this image: Robert Delaunay (1885-1941). Hommage à Blériot, 1914. Kunstmuseum Basel. Leimtempera auf Leinwand. HxB : 250 x 250 cm. Photo : Martin P. Bühler © L&M Services B.V.
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